We Germans, by Alexander Starritt.
‘What did you do in the war, Grandpa?’ was the classic question asked by all young offspring of their grandfathers after the Second World War, and some of the answers were horrifying, heart-stopping adventures, but told with verve and, if the memories weren’t too awful, depending on the age of the grandchild, related in the sure knowledge that they fought to liberate the world from Tyranny and Injustice, and a mad Leader who wanted to destroy civilisation. For they were on the winning side.
A young Scotsman asks
his German Opa the same question;
Callum’s mother is German but he has been raised in Scotland and,
despite being bilingual and having regular holidays with his German
grandparents in Heidelberg, he sees himself as a countryman of the Winning
Side: when he asks the question of his
Opa, it is in such a way that the old man is irritated and refuses to discuss
his experiences. Callum’s curiosity is
not satisfied until after the old man’s death, when a letter from Opa is
discovered, addressed to him, which relates in chilling detail exactly what Opa
did in the war, the war that started so gloriously for hundreds of thousands of
German troops marching East to Moscow, and ended with the starving remnants of
those ‘invincible’ forces trying to make their way back to a Germany that was
in utter chaos: ‘this is what I did in the war, Callum.’
Callum’s Opa went to
war as a conscripted Artilleryman in 1940.
His scientific studies at University were interrupted, but he didn’t
think he’d be away for very long; he was
sure that he would realise his cherished dream of being a scientist once
victory was achieved, and life would be back to a comforting normality with his
family. Now it’s 1944 and he finds
himself ‘foraging’ for food in the Polish countryside – any kind of food, with
other starving soldiers from the remains of various regiments as they tried to
reach the German border. He is ashamed, too, to be taking food – any
kind of food – from the villages they pass through, for he knows that the
inhabitants are starving as well. But
hunger has no morals. And they know the
Russian Army is not far behind: there
will be no mercy from them.
Opa’s experiences are a
classic example of what it was like to be on the losing side, the side that
committed crimes of such heinous savagery that the world will never forget; a cultured nation that will always be branded
by the terrible sins of supreme power and blind obedience. By the end of this powerful narration Callum
– and every reader – will know, too.
Alexander Starritt has produced a brilliant, singular morality tale, one
that should be taught in schools. SIX STARS.
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